a strange day

at the seven deadly sins show!
my pilgrimage to see the many Sargents in Boston. People just looooooved him there, and so do I!
(check my flickr site for more recent trip photos! they're fun)

Well, this is the first time I've ever been on Xanex (sp?). It may be subsiding now, but it was nice. I had a fine morning of church, meeting a new friend or two over coffee, and was settling down (for a cold winter's night?)--until I started having chest pains and dizziness. It was just shy of the pain I had during my lovely gall bladder attack stage of life, and I thought I was well shut of it from now on, as the offending part has been removed. I thought it might be a reaction to some antibiotics for a recent cold, so I went to the ER with D to get checked out. A few hours later, I'm home and fine, with 2 bandaids for the "pokes" I got (a's word for needles). I was pretty much fine until they came to take blood and put in an IV, and then unfortunately my Wuss Syndrome set in and I hyperventilated. It was kindof embarrassing, as I know rationally that all these wonderful people are there to help me, and I am over the worst of my post-traumatic-stress bit from when A was born. I'm still awfully bad with IV's though, and breathe and pray as I might, I just couldn't handle the whatever-it-is that scares the hell out of me with needles and knowing things are sticking into me. Hence the Xanex. Piercings and tattoos are out for me, even if I liked them, and luckily heroin will never be a temptation either. Too bad, as Baltimore's heroin is legendary.

So here I am, trying to chill a bit and succeeding pretty well. I would love to write what I'm doing right now, but that would involve blabbing Christmas secrets all over the interwebs. I am very excited though, because D delivered a stroke of genius today and my own brain has been working as feverishly as my cold fingers on some fun hand-made projects. Pictures will follow. I'm trying to convince D to get a small space heater for the studio, as it is the coldest room in the house, and when I'm in there the only things that are moving are my hands. Not conducive to heat production. I don't mind saving money on heat (or at least, not being completely bankrupted by heating bills), but I do mind the numbness in my extremities that are very valuable to my work.

D has called our family the OCD's, and like the Avengers, who say "Avengers Assembled!" or something of that sort, we have assembled many days this week to play with a hoard of legos most generously given to us by my parents. Three generations of legos, plus a few of our own sets (star wars, of course) were stored in a large wooden box that my dad and I made years ago. While my older sister permed her hair with mom (a Lilt disaster), and my younger sister was too busy pretending to be a dog (she was about 3 or so), I would go to the basement and build stuff with my dad. We designed the box to have a bunch of compartments for smaller pieces, base plates, and directions, and the lid comes with two posts to turn it into a table when it's open. Pretty ingenious, I must say. The box fits perfectly under the mostly unused train table (a present from the inlaws, which all other children love and would kill for, but my kid is all "meh" about trains.??? don't all kids love trains? apparently not). So now the table is home to about seventy mismatched minifigs, whose heads, legs, and acoutrements have been pulled apart, rearranged into aliens, and eaten by lego dragons. The arsenal of lego weapons is enough to outfit an army, and in true A style, they're all smaller than a fat toothpick. We've built a topsy-turvy castle, some Egyptian archeology things, and a space shuttle platform. He is in hog heaven. A is good so far at keeping them all in his room, on the table, but I am just waiting for the day that the tender part of my bare heel finds one. Such are the hazards of motherhood. If not this, then it would be my Little Pony hairbrushes or Polly Pocket's purses, which aren't much better. OCD's assemble (legos)!